Monday, October 20, 2008

Mea Culpa-Unknown Parasites?-Bah!

Earlier this month we picked up a story about "unknown parasites" covering a dead Salmon Shark (Lamnaditropis) that washed up along the north west coast.

While these standings have increased over the past few years-we decided to follow up on the story today. Here's what we found out this morning and it's another case of media oversell...mea culpa we posted it as well:

Hi Folks,

We're following up on a story from last month about a young Salmon Shark that washed up on the beach covered in "unknown parasites". Did the autopsy reveal of what this animal was covered in?

Yes the parasites were identified and are quite common. The story itself got blown out of proportion, as most news stories do. The "unknown parasites" were not unknown they were just parasites we had just not seen before as we do not deal with sharks that often.